The present invention relates to a safety device for power-driven woodworking tools, and more particularly to a safety device which is helpful for feeding a workpiece past a rotary blade or cutter of a table saw, a jointer-planer, or a radial arm saw.
A continual safety problem with table saws, radial arm saws and jointer-planers is that there is a distinct risk of a user's fingers or forearm being cut while feeding a long piece of wood past the blades. That is, when sawing a longitudinally oriented narrow strip from a piece of wood, cutting parallel with the grain, or while planing a long board, it is all too easy to cut a finger or worse, especially when feeding the last portion of such a workpiece past the blade. Use of table saws or radial arm saws may be particularly dangerous when they are used to cut very thin slices of wood from a workpiece, so that the usual blade guards cannot be left in place during the sawing operation concerned.
In the past, pusher sticks have been used to push a workpiece over at least the last portion of its path past the blades of such tools. More recently, plastic pusher sticks have been manufactured in a preferred shape for engaging a workpiece, but pusher sticks, whether of wood or of plastic, are somewhat clumsy to use and are themselves often cut by the blade of the tool so that they have to be replaced frequently or are not readily available when they ought to be used.
Other prior art devices have attempted to provide convenient and safer ways to feed workpieces past the blades of such power tools, but without complete success. For example, Schnell U.S. Pat. No. 4,485,711 discloses a device which straddles a rip fence of a circular table saw, with an adjustably located plate holding down and pushing a workpiece along a face of the rip fence.
Livick U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,173 discloses a different device which also straddles and rides along a rip fence, holding down and pushing a workpiece with a pair of long slender members which must be properly adjusted to engage a workpiece and force it past the rotating table saw blade.
Foray et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,198 discloses a clamp arrangement fitted on a guide rail that is mounted on a rip fence. The clamp arrangement carries a workpiece as the entire clamp arrangement is slid along the guide rail. While this apparatus appears to be able to accurately move a workpiece carried in the clamp arrangement, the size of a workpiece which can be accommodated by the arrangement disclosed appears to be limited, and each workpiece must be carefully clamped in place.
In addition, the relevant prior art devices seem likely to obstruct use of a rip fence in some situations and seem to be easily removable from the rip fence and to be set aside or stored away where they will not be readily available when they are most needed.
What is needed, then, is an improved device for enabling the user of a table saw, jointer-planer, or radial arm saw to feed a long workpiece, and particularly the final end of such a workpiece, safely past the rotating blade of such a power tool, and without the need first to find, and perhaps mount, a detachable device such as a workpiece pusher which has been removed from the rip fence or guide wall of the power tool.